This week I've been trying to find out whether my experience in the Celebrity Poker finals would stand me in good stead to give up the shallow world of comedy and become a professional poker player and be able to give something back to the community.
I've been playing on-line most days and limiting my spending to see whether I can turn a profit.
It started well and in the first session I got over $1000 up (this was all real money incidentally) but I foolishly kept playing for hours and go poker blindness and kind of forgot it was real and lost most of that.
I tried to restrict myself to playing for half an hour maximum from there on in, but the problem is the game is so more-ish and like Civilisation II you always feel the need to see just one more round to find out how that goes for you. I nearly always got up and ahead in my half hour session and nearly always did badly if I carried on beyond that.
By the end of the third day I was almost £200 ahead, which is still a rather disappointing 60 odd pounds a day and probably not enough to warrant me giving up my job.
Especially given that yesterday I lost all of that and about 10 extra pounds, which made a daily wage of minus £2.50 a day. I don't think I can live on that. I have become much better at reading people though and there were times when you'd know you had a bit of a sap on your table and you'd be able to take them for everything they had (I was great at bluffing, in the way I should have been in the proper final). Alas more often than not I was still the sap. It was still a thrill and I got several hours of entertainment for very little outlay (and if only I'd bailed out on day one I would have had lots of money to play with for the rest of the week). Thankfully I am not in a place at the moment where the thrill is enough reason to continue because it vindicates my existence. I would rather spend my money on food and my mortgage than give it all to some anonymous poker player somewhere in the world.
Today I took the poker off the computer. Doubtless I will put it back on for a bit at some point, but I think I will always end up somewhere near even (probably just on the negative side), so you don't have to worry mum. I then got on with writing a proposal for a newspaper column based on this weblog and taking a phone call about a rather exciting script editing job. Maybe the best way forward is to attempt to earn a living, rather than stealing from the poor saps who know even less about poker than me.
